


Release me from my bands

by Vampiric_Charms



Series: Burns Most of All [38]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Implied Relationships, M/M, Unrequited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-25
Updated: 2016-11-25
Packaged: 2018-09-02 05:39:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8652967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vampiric_Charms/pseuds/Vampiric_Charms
Summary: Curumo clumsily wonders about things he should not and Mairon defers far too easily.  Nothing is going on, nothing is changing.  Or so says Mairon when Curumo asks, and asks again.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is set before - though very near the end of - Mairon’s fall. It kind of, sort of implies again that little infatuation/crush Curmuo has on Mairon, but can easily be read without that view. I have no idea how I got myself into this little corner and will not drag anyone else over. The poems used here are from _The Winter’s Tale_ (Shakespeare) and a lovely piece titled _Snow Storm_ by Tu Fu. The title, as it happens, comes from _The Tempest_ , also by Shakespeare. 
> 
> You can find me on tumblr now, if you want! I’m posting under across-the-cypress-trees.
> 
> Enjoy!

“ _The lark, that tirra-lirra chants_ -”

“You do love this song, Curumo, don’t you?” Mairon asked, interrupting the sweet flow of words as his companion sang beside him.  Mairon glanced over with a sly little grin, enough for Curumo to understand he was teasing, and watched as a faint blush crept across the other’s cheeks.

“You’re quite the lark yourself, Mairon,” Curumo retorted with a small smile of his own, the blush already gone as his words began to flow freely again.  He flopped back into the grass and raised his arms to cradle behind his head, staring up into the net of rustling green leaves and silvery brown branches overhead.

They were together in a lovely clearing Mairon had lounged in with Melkor rather recently, though this was a secret he would not be sharing.  The glade itself was hiding their former presence quite well, the grass set to rights and all the picked flowers already blooming again, and Curumo’s smile widened as the wind blew gently to rustle through the trees.  A little bird took flight from one of the branches, several more joining in seconds later.  

“ _With heigh! with heigh! The thrush and the jay!_ ” he began to sing again happily.  He raised one hand overhead, invisibly tracing the flights of those birds as they flew to a different tree, and then another.  “ _Are summer songs for me and my sweethearts, while we lie tumbled in the hay._ ”

His voice faded with the rising wind, taken gently away to join those darting birds, and he fell quiet with a pleased expression across his face.  “I can begin again from the start, if you wish,” he said, still lying on his back and staring above.  “We can sing it together.”

Mairon, though, could feel his subtle gaze from his periphery, watching him and trying very hard not to - or at least not to be caught doing so.  “Tirra-lirra, oh?” Mairon chortled, poking him sharply in the ribs.  Curumo rolled in on himself and turned away with a keening laugh.  “You know very well I do not sing as you do.  You should have brought Olórin if you wished to sing, or Eönwë.  The birds simply flock to him, you’d have had a marvelous time.”  He sighed, leaning back on his hands and peering up into the treetops as well.

It was a sweet day, truly.  They had finished their work in the forge early and, while Mairon could have stayed longer to work on other projects waiting for his hand, Curumo had tempted him outdoors with a basket of sweets and the promise of poetry.  A part of him wished to deny the offer, to _wait_ , to see if perhaps another would venture to his rooms and seek his attention as he had been doing so often lately, and he found his thoughts wandering even now.  It was growing more and more difficult to focus, something he could not deny.

Curumo laughed beside him, unaware of his thoughts and waving his hand languidly up in the air.  “Fine, fine.  If you will not sing, why not recite your poem?”

They’d been taking it in turns to read aloud from the book lying on their blanket.  This particular book was Curumo’s, tucked into the basket with the fruit and sweet buns and a cask of wine, but Mairon was familiar with most of the poems it held, as they were copied into similar little hand-bound books of his own.  He took it up and flipped from the page that was open to find one that caught his attention.  Curumo waited patiently beside him, shifting his gaze every so often to study his profile before looking back up at the beautiful trees above.

Mairon did not see a poem he desired to read aloud and slowly closed the book, holding it gently in his hands.  Curumo was about to speak a protest when Mairon began anyway, staring listlessly at the book’s closed cover.

“ _Tumult, weeping, many new ghosts,_ ” he began softly, “ _Heartbroken, aging, alone, I sing to myself._ ”  He finished the last few lines in nearly a whisper, his companion silent as he listened.

“That isn’t one of mine.”  Curumo turned his head, somewhat confused as he watched Mairon openly now.  “I do not believe I’ve heard it before.”

“No.  It - ”  He had composed it himself not too long ago, truly, but he did not feel inclined to share this information.  He laid his hand flat on the leatherbound cover of the book still in his lap.  “It is a new one I came across a while back.”

“It’s so sad.”

They lapsed into silence for several minutes, Curumo returned to watching the tree’s leaves and branches swaying peacefully in the wind (and Mairon still from the corner of his eye) as Mairon mindlessly opened the book and read a few lines of many different poems, none of them resonating within him the way they used to.

“Are you all right?” Curumo asked softly.  

He had sat up again, his knees bumping Mairon’s as he situated himself back on the blanket, and Mairon looked at him, somewhat startled by the question.  “What do you mean?” he returned with a rather false smile that still did its work quite well in an effort to put the query off the way he so often could.  “Is this because you cannot pull me into a joyous round of your bird song?  Or is it a daffodil song?  I do keep forgetting the opening stanzas, but you cannot blame me for that!”   

Curumo watched him, and Mairon could almost feel his honest brown eyes sweeping over his face without any of his previous awkward and silent attempts at hiding his emotions under this true guise of concern.  A small bite of guilt welled in his stomach and vanished again quickly.  

“No,” Curumo finally said, “I do not mind if you do not sing with me, you know that.  I enjoy your company more than anything.  I mean…”

He paused to gather his thoughts and Mairon swiftly gathered his own, already preparing a response to a question he was not even sure of yet.  No one had necessarily noticed his long absences, the mild distractions he was sometimes taken by, the way his fellow Maiar might stumble upon him flushed and disheveled in a glade just like this as though he had a mysterious visitor - which he always _had_ , though they’d never been caught.  

But perhaps -

“You just seem so very melancholy lately,” Curumo said.

“ _Melancholy_ ,” Mairon repeated softly, the word rolling across his tongue and falling from his lips like a stone.  “Fear not,” he carried on a moment later, his voice sounding much more jovial than it had been now that his one shortcoming had been revealed.  He grinned, forcing it to spread across his face until he felt the corners of his eyes crinkle.  “I am just fine, my friend, you have no reason to be worried for me, I assure you.  Come, let us sing your song.”

Curumo smiled widely at him, his fears assuaged by Mairon’s soothing words, and tilted his head back to look up at the sky once more.  Words, gentle and pleasant, filled the air as he began to sing, and Mairon waited for the second line to join him, his mood now rather false even as he continued to give the illusion of comfort, both for his friend and with his own distancing life.

He would have to be more careful, he supposed, as time wore on.  If Curumo found something was amiss before he was meant to and spread the word as he was wont to do…

But that would not happen.

Mairon would not let that happen.  Not when there was too much to lose.  

And so he smiled, and he sang, and he pretended to be everything his friend wished he would be until their time came to an end.  
  
  



End file.
